Trump to discuss Assange & DNC hack in Rohrabacher ‘rendezvous’

Republican Rep Dana Rohrabacher has claimed he and President Donald Trump will “rendezvous” so he can relay information he received from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on the Democratic National Committee hack last year.

"It is my understanding from other parties who are trying to arrange a rendezvous with myself and the president, it’s being arranged for me to give him the firsthand information,” Rohrabacher told Sean Hannity on his radio show Monday.

Rohrabacher met with Assange earlier this month and discussed the DNC email breach that took place last spring during a three-hour meeting at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Assange "emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails," Rochrabacher told the Hill at the time. “Julian also indicated that he is open to further discussions regarding specific information about the DNC email incident that is currently unknown to the public.”

Following the meeting with Rohrabacher, WikiLeaks released a statement, confirming the meeting took place “at the Congressman’s request.”

“Mr Assange does not speak through third parties. Only statements issued directly by him or his lawyers can be considered authoritative.”

Russia has been blamed for both the hack of the DNC, which revealed the Committee’s preference for candidate Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, and the hack of emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.

The Podesta emails were published by WikiLeaks in batches for a month leading up to the November 2016 election. The DNC emails were also published by the whistleblowing site.

Assange and other WikiLeaks insiders have previously implied that the DNC emails came from an inside source and not a hacker. In July, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former intelligence officers, sent Trump a memo, challenging the claim that the DNC hack was the work of Russians and suggesting the emails were downloaded locally by someone within the DNC.

"If the information comes out, there will be an outrage among the American people that their time has been wasted,” Rohrabacher told Hannity. “They've had this story over and over and again shoved down their throats as if the Russians colluded with Donald Trump, and this is an attempt, as I say, to negate their vote in the ballot booth.”

"When the American people realize that this is a con job and a power grab they'll be upset." he added. "I'm trying to get this out in the public now where we can get this Julian Assange thing straightened out so that people know that it wasn't the Russians that hacked into the system, and that's not how this information was released."

Assange is reportedly seeking a deal with the US so he can end his asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.